Giving kids a suitcase of their own

CASA aims to provide luggage to DCFS children

December 12, 2012|By Kate Thayer, Chicago Tribune reporter

Lori Hewitt of CASA Kane County sorts through suitcases and other supplies that will go to children headed to foster care. Donations support the purchases, and most of the organization. (Kate Thayer, Chicago Tribune)

Imagine arriving home from school and being told you can't live in your house anymore. You watch social workers shove some of your belongings into a grocery bag before driving you away.

That's not unusual for children in the court system, said Lori Hewitt, director of development at CASA Kane County. CASA, which stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates, is expanding a program that provides a new suitcase for the children they serve.

"It's traumatic," Hewitt said of children who must leave their home for safety reasons. "So, we thought we'd give them a suitcase. It's something that gives them the dignity they need to start a new life."

CASAs are volunteers who represent and advocate for children in the Department of Children and Family Services system who are placed in foster care. Advocates attend court sessions and serve as a contact for the child. CASA Kane County currently serves 538 children – the highest caseload ever. But every child continues to get his or her own volunteer advocate, Hewitt said. That 100 percent placement is rare in the Chicago area, she said.

Recently, Rotary clubs in Batavia, Carpentersville and Elgin donated $4,250 to help expand the suitcases program, allowing CASA to give new luggage to children who must leave their home at a moment's notice.

Hewitt said some of the kids do a lot of moving around, and often don't have a lot of their own, or new, belongings. A suitcase with their name on it helps them feel normal, she said.

Jean Fisk, 73, of Batavia, has been a CASA volunteer advocate for 14 years. Some of the children on her caseload have been with her that entire time. A new suitcase "would have been useful," she said, with some of her cases. A suitcase "would give that feeling of you're actually being moved out, not shoved out," she said.

"They're so uprooted, these poor children," Fisk said. In one case she recalled, the child lived in 10 different homes.

"I'm the only constant in his life," she said, adding she still keeps in touch with the children she's helped.

Hewitt said establishing programs like the suitcase donation effort gives groups like the Rotary clubs something tangible to fund when they ask how to help.

That's also the idea behind a garden CASA recently built outside its headquarters at the old Kane County courthouse in downtown Geneva.

"A lot of times when you work with social service groups, they want to see something tangible, instead of just giving a check and not knowing where it's going," Hewitt said.

The Dunham Fund, based in Aurora, offered to match 40 cents for every dollar CASA raised during a two-year period. Because of that, CASA is trying to raise $1 million. The garden gave people something to work toward, Hewitt said, and helped CASA inch closer to its goal. The campaign ends Dec. 31, and so far the organization has raised $750,000, Hewitt said.

For the latest progress on the goal, volunteer opportunities and other information, visit casakanecounty.org.